Follow the Leader
by RochelleRene
Summary: An alternate ending to "Last Resort"


**This is just a one-shot - kinda PWP - idea I had as an alternate (better!) ending for "Last Resort." Thus, the opening paragraphs and dialogue (in italics) are what happened in the show. Then I took it hostage. **

**Also, I know I played a little bit with their college canon here, so super-fans, take it easy. It's just a fic, after all. It's meant to be fun.**

**[H] [H] [H]**

_Cuddy stood in her office and surveyed the destruction – the toppled objects and the blood and House's scrawl across her wall. She was mentally cursing him when he limped in to retrieve his cane, already in his coat and ready to leave.__"Test confirmed melioidosis. Easy to miss on a stain," he informed her, grabbing his cane. "Scans and X-rays vary widely."_

_Cuddy turned at him, aghast. "Is that all you care about? A moron storms the clinic, bullies his way into life without parole, you enabling him every step."_

_House interrupted her rant. "If he hadn't done what he did, he'd be dead. Good thing you enabled my every medical move." He stepped toward her, staring at her, and Cuddy stared back, thoughtful._

"_You think I handled this differently because you were in here?" she asked, incredulous._

_"I don't know," he replied coolly. "Let's try it again without me."_

_Cuddy held his gaze for a moment, then sneered a little. "This is why you and I can't be a… thing." She turned to walk back behind her desk._

_"If you're suggesting that you screwed up because of a non-relationship with me, I don't know how I can help you. Cuz the only change you can make from a non-relationship is…" The words hung in the air. His blue gaze hung on her face. Cuddy couldn't breathe._

_"You want a relationship?" she finally asked._

_There was a brief second where they stared at each and House looked earnest, vulnerable, ready. But after that brief second he sneered. "God, no. Just trying to follow your logic." He turned to leave._

Cuddy shook her head with disgust. "Isn't it ironic," she said slowly to his back, "how you yourself act as such compelling evidence against your assertion that people can't change."

House turned back and furrowed his brow, tilting his face upward in mock confusion. "Isn't it ironic," he mimicked, "how you use so many words even when you're trying to sound pithy?"

Cuddy narrowed her eyes at him. She stepped slowly back around her desk getting closer to him with every word. "You come in here," she accused, "and start accusing me of acting in a certain way to… protect you…" She was near him now and House was almost imperceptibly backing away, but Cuddy continued talking and continued inching closer to him. "And when I ask you to respond to this perceived overture – my supposed desire for a relationship for you - you act like a scared little boy." She was so close now that her face tilted up to look into his. House stopped leaning back and stood up straighter, staring down at her defiantly.

"I'm not scared of a relationship with you_, _Cuddy."

"No?" she asked cockily.

He shook his head like that was a ridiculous notion. "I'm scared that the cobwebs in your vagina are all that's holding you together." He smirked at her and she smirked back.

"Of course, House. Because the 'Cuddy doesn't have sex' joke holds no real appeal for you," she said sarcastically. "The idea that no one else gets to have me is just a random notion you like to use to be funny."

"Not random," he pointed out. "A conclusion based on observation of the facts."

"Observation," Cuddy practically spat at him. "Exactly. There was a time when you interacted, stimulated, catalyzed." She blinked at him. "Now you just stand at arm's length and observe… You have changed," she said softly, then turned back to her desk.

"Not wanting to have sex with you twenty years after I once had sex with you does not mean I've undergone a personality change," House explained with loud exasperation.

Cuddy glared at him for his volume and went to close the office doors. "No," Cuddy hissed, returning to her desk and stacking up some papers, her back to him. "But _wanting_ to have sex with me and playing hard to get is a dramatic shift in tactic from the House I once knew." She glanced at him over her shoulder.

"There is no tactic because I don't want you, Cuddy!" he yelled. Then more softly. "And there _was_ no tactic because _you, _might I remind you, seduced _me._" Cuddy laughed so hard she snorted. "You did!" He couldn't help smiling a little – in spite of his chagrin – because of her laughter and their shared secret.

"Okay, House. You're right." She walked over to her coat rack and grabbed her trench. "You were always a passive little class clown who just waited for women to fall in your lap," she said facetiously, shrugging into her coat. Then she met his eyes again, like a challenge. "You were never a confident, aggressive, say-what-you-want kind of guy." The words hung there for a moment while she stared at him. "I must be mixing you up with someone else," she murmured, tying the knot in her trench coat belt with resolution. She picked up her briefcase and turned toward the door, but House reached out and grabbed her forearm, letting go the moment she stopped and turned back to him.

"What are you getting at, Cuddy?" he asked. "You just want me to throw you up against a wall so you can tell me it's inappropriate but you hope we can still be friends?" He watched her slowly grin at him.

"Propriety isn't usually your concern," she pointed out.

"It's usually yours," he shot back.

"You weren't worried about it when I was your student asking you to come over and tutor me."

"You weren't asking for tutoring and you know it," he said, glaring at her.

"And_ you_ knew it," she retorted. "And that's my point." House raised his eyebrows in inquiry, so she spelled it out for him. "After weeks of flirting and leering at me, I came to you after class and asked you to come over that night and help me with my paper. And you were speechless for a moment." House rolled his eyes. "Speech. Less." Cuddy emphasized. "So I took pity on you and told you I understood that maybe it was inappropriate to invite you over and to just forget I said anything." She studied him. "Do you remember any of this or had all the blood rushed out of your brain by this time?"

He frowned. "I remember."

"And I went back to my chair to gather my things," she continued, and her voice grew lower, more sultry. She took a step toward House, but didn't touch him. "And _you _came up behind _me,_" she pointed out, "and put _your_ hand on _my_ hip, even while the class was still milling around," she raised an eyebrow at him. "And you said into my ear, and I quote, 'I'll come over and do whatever you let me do and I don't give a fuck about if it's appropriate. I just don't think you know what you're getting yourself into.'" House was staring at her now with an unreadable expression of unspeakable intensity. "End quote," she whispered. He was silent until she finally said, "Any of this ringing a bell or has the Vicodin already eaten that part of your brain?" He just continued to stare at her. Cuddy sighed heavily. "And I don't know if it's twenty years of aging, a mangled leg, or a narcotics addiction, but that guy was different," she concluded. "That guy wasn't worried in the least that I didn't want him back… That guy didn't play games."

"If I knew what I was getting myself into, I wouldn't be so interested," he replied. Cuddy smiled. "That's what _you_ said."

Cuddy stood straight and motionless, but swallowed hard. "That's still true." They stared at each other a moment then she cleared her throat. "But you've changed," she said in a falsely chipper voice of acceptance. "You either no longer want to… 'do what I'll let you do'… or you're no longer able to just say it." She blinked those big gray eyes. "Either way, I'm less interested. I've memorized this dance already." She gave him a tight-lipped smile and turned to leave again. And again she felt his hand stop her, this time hooking her belt, pulling her close, hard and fast. Their faces brushed lightly and Cuddy gasped millimeters from his lips.

"What do you want me to say, exactly?" he asked her gruffly. "I might point out that the power dynamics have done a one-eighty on us over two decades."

"Oh," Cuddy laughed breathily. "So you're worried because now _I'm_ in charge of _you?"_ She smiled seductively. "Well, House, you've taught me that sometimes it works to not give a fuck about what's appropriate." She dropped her briefcase to the floor with a thunk. "But I'm just trying to follow your logic."

The confusion and trepidation finally began to melt off his face, replaced with a lusty grin. "Maybe now _you _get to do whatever _I_ let you do." He pulled his head back and raised an eyebrow at her.

"Maybe to protect myself against a sexual harassment suit we should be videotaping this," she countered, her eyebrow arching right back.

House grinned and leaned back in. "Videotaping what?" he asked quietly, his bottom lip grazing hers. Cuddy ran the tip of her nose down the side of his.

"The way you're afraid to kiss me, of course." She smirked and he promptly wrapped his arms around her waist and pushed her gently toward the desk.

"I already kissed you a couple weeks ago." He hiked her ass onto it and she hooked a leg around his hips.

"No one can criticize you for neglecting foreplay." She leaned her head to the side while his mouth met her skin. She started breathing heavily right away, one hand on the back of his head, urging him to continue. "Highly inappropriate. Etcetera, etcetera," she teased. House grinned against her clavicle.

"Don't give a fuck. Blah, blah, blah." He ran his hands up under her skirt, along her thighs. "So nice we can do away with the formalities," he commented, straightening up a little. He leaned in toward her lips, but Cuddy pulled away.

"Except one," she reminded him. She gestured toward the door and House took bounding limps to lock it and return in record time.

"Feel better?" he asked.

"Not yet," she replied, rehooking her leg and scooting herself as closer to the edge.

"If I'd known it got you so hot, I would have had myself taken hostage years ago."

"And I'd have had people hold you at gunpoint years ago if I'd known you just wouldn't die." She slid her hands up along his tee shirt, hooked her fingers on the lapels of his coat, and slid it off his shoulders. He let it flop to the floor. He jerked open the knot of her trench coat's belt and opened it. He didn't bother sliding it off her shoulders though, instead moving right to the buttons on her suit jacket, and then the buttons on her shirt underneath, expertly and systematically opening each one until he reached skin. Then he swooped all three layers down her back at once so Cuddy was sitting on the desk in her bra, nested in silk and wool and linen. They'd reached the point where she no longer felt a sense of control and she was breathless. She was trying to appear composed but her chest heaved erratically in front of him as he studied her shape, running his palms along her sides.

House yanked her skirt up her legs with a tug that clearly tore fabric somewhere on the garment. They could hear the bustle of the hospital still, and it was making them nervous, but the nerves were making them even hotter for each other. "You clearly still don't know what you're getting yourself into," he teased her, sliding her panties down her legs until they hung off one ankle.

"Remind me," she answered cockily.

And with that he dropped to his knees and she felt his hands run along her legs, his lips kissing her ankle… her calf… the inside of her knee… her thigh… more thigh. Then his fingers were on her hips and his mouth was on her sex and her brain was in the ozone somewhere. She gasped at first, as if surprised by this course of action, but actually just surprised that she had forgotten –even a little bit – how fucking good he was. She leaned back and fell to her elbows and his hands moved back to hold more of her ass. Cuddy moaned as his tongue moved along her folds, and he answered her with his own groan of approval.

"Oh my God," she whispered at her office ceiling, and House took that cue to continue exactly what he was doing, simply incrementally increasing his pressure. He felt her writhing rhythmically in his hands, and he felt himself dying to just drop his pants and be inside her. But he disciplined himself because her thighs were closing in on him. And because he felt her kick off her shoes so she could dig her bare heels into his back. And because she tasted perfect. And because she begged him not to stop. And because he _did _want this, whether he'd say it out loud or not.

When Cuddy came it was different. She had to reign in the abandon he'd remembered all these years. They were in her office and she had to swallow her screams and whimper instead. They were on a desk and she had to hold more still and let him move her to him instead. He had a bum leg and she had to tremble and recover without his body immediately pressed to hers and let him ease up slowly instead. It was a different dance this time, for sure.

When House stood up he looked at her, sprawled in her perfect beauty across papers and fabric, her eyes fluttering and her mouth a perfect circle of puffing breath. She felt his gaze and lolled her head back to face him, smiling in spite of herself. He smirked and dropped his elbows to either side of her, their faces grazing each other. He ground up against her through his jeans, his smirk now mingling with an expression of unbearable torment. She met his eyes and he stopped for a second, leaving them staring at each other, motionless.

"I do want you, Cuddy."

She smiled. "I know."

There was a brief pause. "But I can't pretend it's not freaking me out."

She nodded. "It freaks me out too," she offered.

He rolled his eyes. "Everything freaks you out."

She took a shaky breath. "I thought you might actually die today," she told him.

"You gotta work on your dirty talk," he teased, looking away from her. But Cuddy took his face between her hands and made him face her.

"I thought I might lose you," she confessed, "before either of us had had the courage to say it." She let go of his face, but he didn't look away. He nodded slightly, signaling that he understood her, what she meant.

"Well, good thing you're an enabler."

"Good thing you're insane."

He looked at her for a beat and then smiled a little. "Good thing."

Cuddy wrapped her arms around his neck and he stood up, bringing her with him. He was still between her open legs and when she began messing with his belt and jeans his affection for her mingled with his lust for her and he simply couldn't get to her fast enough, helping her get his pants open and around his ankles as quickly as possible. He didn't bother with any pleasantries, and just watched her face as he entered her, her eyes on his and her hands in his hair.

Cuddy felt his hands splayed across her back, and his thighs moving against hers. She felt his eyes studying her face while she alternated between closing hers to bask in the sensation of him filling her and opening them to stare at his body and she lifted his shirt over his chest and arms. She was following the rhythm he'd set, riding this wave of unbelievable pleasure with him. She'd nip his earlobe in response to his groans, and pull her knees up when his breathing hitched. She was hoping that she was driving him crazy, and so she was surprised when he suddenly stopped. But then with a fast sweeping movement he'd flipped her over and bent her over the desk, her tiptoes meeting the floor again. His mouth smothered her back and he finally unhooked the goddamn bra and his hands cupped her breasts as he continued thrusting into her, again and again and again. She was useless now, just lying there and feeling him, a second orgasm building rapidly in her coiled belly. When she felt it rising, felt the delicious threat of the spring setting free, she cried his name to him and he was bowled over, gently biting down on her shoulder while they came together, a lovely tangle of sweaty limbs and wet mouths against whatever skin they could find.

He said her name back.

She was sure of it.

They lay across her desk, breathing wildly and kissing still. There was a knock at Cuddy's door and she stiffened beneath him, but he didn't react in the least. "Busy!" she yelled.

"Oh, come on, we're finished," he taunted her quietly in her ear.

"Are we?" she asked, half kidding and half truly asking the question that terrified them both.

He shifted on top of her a little so that he could lay his face next to hers and look at her. His clear blue eyes studied her again and he swallowed a lump in his throat before promising, "Logical or completely bat-shit crazy illogical… I'll follow you."


End file.
